You can decide which side is pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-gay marriage, and pro-Iraq withdrawal timetable — and which side is anti-abortion, pro-NRA, anti-gay marriage and stay the course in Iraq. It doesn’t really matter, does it?

[Story.]

John F. Kennedy allayed fears about a Catholic becoming president with this famous address in 1960. Now, Mitt Romney has announced that he will make a similar speech about his Mormon faith.

Unfortunately, Mitt can’t use JFK’s script. Kennedy’s speech played to the traditional American value of religious tolerance — whereas Romney must win over a party with a vocal minority that prides itself on its religious intolerance. In fact, he has famously flip-flopped on issues like abortion rights and gay marriage to appeal to this minority.

So, what to say? Maybe he should take a cue from Jon Voight’s intolerant rants in the execrable, Mormon-bashing September Dawn. He just needs to skip the part about killing “Gentiles” and focus his wrath on those who “believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

People like JFK. That will appeal to the minority he’s determined to court all too well.

According to the London Times, Romney has been the subject of a nasty telemarketing campaign similar to the one that Bush used against McCain in the 2000 Republican primary race. The telemarketers have been making outrageous claims about Romney’s religious beliefs.

Media Orchard has exclusively obtained the transcript of one of these slanderous phone calls.

Anti-Romney telemarketer: Sir, as you consider your vote in the upcoming primary, I would like to remind you that one candidate, Mitt Romney, believes that, in 1827, an angel named Moroni gave a New York man a set of engraved golden plates, bound into a book and buried in a magic box. And that this magic box was found on a hill in Manchester, New York. And that the golden plates were engraved by a pre-Columbian prophet-historian named Mormon and his son Moroni (the angel), circa 400 AD. And that these plates represent the foundation of Romney’s belief system. And that this man, with these beliefs, wants to be your president.

Prospective primary voter: That’s outrageous!

Oh, wait — that IS what Mormons believe.

And we’re worried about Kucinich seeing a UFO?

Apparently it just wasn’t tough enough for the base — so he’s going with this instead.